The Troublesome Toilet Seat - Up or Down?
Why would someone start a serious study of something so silly? That's precisely what I thought until I noticed that this seems to be a real problem in many households, at least as evidenced by popular sitcoms on TV such as ABC's ``Home improvement'' and NBC's ``3rd rock from the Sun''. This is what ultimately stimulated my interest in this seemingly trivial issue.
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1. Introduction
In spite of Faye's repeated insistence that Mike leave the toilet seat down, Mike made the unfortunate mistake of accidentally leaving it up one day, only to suffer its dire consequences. Faye threw such a fit that Mike had to sleep on the couch almost that whole week until he made it up to her.Most of us who read the above passage are probably sympathetic toward Mike, but strangely, not as harsh in our judgment of Faye as we should be. Consider instead the following situation:
In spite of Mary's repeated insistence that Peter bring her a bunch of red roses every day on his way home from work, Peter made the unfortunate mistake of forgetting to do so one day, only to suffer its dire consequences. Mary threw such a fit that Peter had to sleep on the couch almost that whole week, until he made it up to her.
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